Kylemore Abbey

Kylemore Abbey stands on the wooded shore of Kylemore Lough, its castle-like facade perfectly mirrored in the water below. It is the most photographed building in Connemara, and the view from the main road — grey stone towers and turrets reflected in the dark lough with the Twelve Bens rising behind — is one of the genuinely iconic images of Ireland.

The buildings are now home to a community of Benedictine nuns, who run the estate, its Victorian walled garden, and a girls' boarding school. The walled garden, restored after decades of neglect, covers 2.5 hectares and is divided into formal flower, vegetable, and fernery sections — one of the finest surviving Victorian kitchen gardens in Ireland. The neo-Gothic chapel, where the Henrys are buried, is included in the admission. Allow at least two hours; the abbey is busier in July and August than almost anywhere in Ireland outside Dublin.

things to do sight architecture
A story
Kylemore Abbey was built as a private home in the 1860s by Mitchell Henry, a Manchester doctor, as a gift to his wife Margaret. When she died of dysentery during a trip to Egypt in 1874, he built a miniature Gothic cathedral in her memory on the grounds — and was buried beside her there when he died. The Benedictine nuns who arrived in 1920 still maintain both the abbey and the walled garden.